Leviticus Sandbox
by Notatracer
Summary: *Complete* Part 3. Follows ‘Uncomfortably Green’. Azrael is sent to watch Bethany’s daughter & Metatron is up to something secretive. Next: 'Something Wrong'
1. A Dark Night

(Story order: 1. Hell's Napkin 2. Uncomfortably Green 3. Leviticus Sandbox 4. Something Wrong 5. Black Eye Perplexity; also Azrael Drabbles: short stories from my universe)

When someone is dying, the mind does some pretty odd things. If you're a human, you usually don't have much time to contemplate what image your brain conjures. However, if you're a demon, since you're not really going to die anyway, you have more time to wonder just what the hell your brain is doing. And, as it were, a song was stuck in Azrael's brain. An annoying little ditty that went: 

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Oh, I hate the government

More than you and me

The government stole my goldfish

And unplugged my tv

He'd heard it once in the Pit of all places. For unexplainable reasons that's what was in his mind as he looked around, trying to remember what had just happened. It was dark outside, the middle of the night. There were no stars, no moon; all the streetlights were off. But, he could easily see. Only in the deepest and most dreaded section of Hell was there a darkness he couldn't see in. He was sitting on the sidewalk outside a large building. A church. It was behind him, but he knew that it was a church back there. A large one. The cement under his ass was wet. It must have rained. 

His head was swimming. He didn't feel right at all. His hat was lying, upturned, a few feet away. He started to stand in order to retrieve it, but a sudden sharp pain in his back prevented him from doing so. He sat down with an 'umph' noise. He wasn't used to pain and this really hurt. He reached behind himself to find a knife buried up to the handle in his lower back. It must have been blessed because not only did it hurt terribly, but he was also pouring blood. He looked down, that's what he'd been sitting in. A pool of his own blood, black as the night that surrounded him. He looked at his hand. The blood on his fingers was black from where he'd touched the knife handle, but the blood on the palms on both of his hands was more of a reddish tint. 

He looked around, trying to find the owner of the red blood. He spotted a figure lying on the ground in the distance. He squinted, trying to make out who it was. It could have been one of several people, or some stranger. He couldn't remember. He couldn't see that far either. Demons have notoriously bad vision. He stood again, this time completely onto his feet. The pain in his back had become dull. He managed to walk maybe two steps before he wobbled. 

"Oh, fuck…" was the last thing he said before he fell over dead. Not the good kind of dead, just the painful sent back to Hell kind.


	2. Styx & Marshmallows

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Earlier that day…

"I hate marshmallows!" exclaimed Azrael loud enough to echo, as he spat a tiny pink marshmallow into the river Styx. Why did they always have to ruin the best cereals with marshmallows? Azrael had his arm, almost to the elbow, buried in a box of Boo Berry cereal. He'd withdraw his arm, discard the marshmallows, and then eat the pieces that vaguely resembled a blueberry flavor. Not technically eat, of course. He didn't have a stomach or anything that even remotely resembled a digestive system. He'd chew until the flavor was gone, then spit the blue/green mush that remained out. Sometimes, however, a marshmallow would slip by and get popped into his mouth with the cereal bits. Then, it'd go sailing back out, usually with a flurry of obscenities. Later, Cerberus would wander by and happily suck up the marshmallows almost like a vacuum. 

Right now, though, Azrael finished the entire box of cereal while sitting alone on a rock at the bank of the river. He had his white shirt unbuttoned, his recently acquired "The Devil Made Me Do It" t-shirt was underneath. He dropped the empty box off to the side, then licked the sand-like cereal remains from his fingers. His hat lay, upturned to his other side. Inside of it was a pair of sunglasses. All along the ground were hundreds maybe even thousands of marshmallows, pink, blue, white, and purple. Joining those were no less than twenty empty cereal boxes. Boo Berry, Frankenberry, Fruit Brute, Yummy Mummy, Smurfberry Crunch, and even a box of Ghostbusters cereal. Most of those cereals didn't even exist on Earth anymore, but as it's been said, things pertaining to the realm of demons and angels didn't necessarily correspond to the time frame that the mortals adhere to. As far as he was concerned, though, Azrael just had to have his fix of sugary sweetness. 

Things had changed slightly in the Pit since his trouble making former angel friends had arrived. Former in that they were no longer angels. And, former that they weren't really his friends anymore. It wasn't like they were necessarily enemies, in a place like this you needed all the non-enemies that you could get. It was just that they didn't really see each other much. An occasional card game here and there was about it. They preferred to keep the company of the rowdy atheists who frequented Friar Rush's bar. And, they were chummy with a few of the demons as well. There was Kobal, who fancied himself a DJ though he wasn't very good at it. Murmur, who was Hell's one and only Neil Diamond impersonator. Dr. Uphir, the only underworld resident who bothered to learn how to treat an injured demon… hence the designation of Doctor. He'd even once seen Melchom with them, that sniveling little toady. And, of course, there was Hela. Hela was Loki's half demon daughter that stemmed from an unfortunate incident that happened way, way back in the days when angels could have children. It's not a pretty story and it's end results were one of many reasons why Azrael tries his best to keep what he does outside of the Pit mostly to himself. Actually, he didn't completely know the story of Hela, he just knew that the Powers were less than pleased. Bartleby wasn't exactly thrilled either.

Azrael preferred to keep company with only one person – himself. Actually, that wasn't entirely true. He didn't even like keeping company with himself, but he couldn't do much about that. That is, not until the opportunity presented itself again to negate existence. But, who knew if and when that was going to happen. 

The change in the Pit being that there were more gatherings amongst those who'd been wise enough to figure out the loop hole of the Pit. Apparently, Bartleby and Loki were having some sort of get together tonight… most likely another drunken party… in the City of Dis. They were humans now; they could get drunk. Dead humans, but humans none the less. Azrael wondered if they could do _everything_ humans could do. He pondered that for a moment, before realizing how envious he felt. He shook the thought away before he debated too hard over what he was envious of exactly. 

He hadn't been invited. His former angel friends hadn't even so much as mentioned it in passing when he saw them yesterday. He'd only found out when he bumped into Murmur, who said something about the gathering during an explanation as to why he was wearing a sequined shirt. And, that was why Azrael had retreated to comfort that was sugary breakfast cereals. Not that he really cared either way. 

Alcohol had little more effect than water, but sugar was a different story. Candy was his favorite. And, the closer to pure sugar the better. He could eat sugar by the spoonful, and had on occasion. But, dry cereal was more his comfort food. There was something about those little hard marshmallows that he despised though.

He was a demon who had been depressed and more than slightly crazy for millions of years. Suicide was not an option. He'd been deemed unworthy of even death. It was physically impossible from him to cry about his problems. And, who'd want to be subject to a weeping demon, anyway? He couldn't sleep it away. There wasn't much he could do. But, there was one thing he could turn to; those little colored puffs of corn with pseudo fruit flavors. He approximated that he could easily go through a metric ton of cereal in a mortal year, if not more. 

He usually shifted his depression into other emotions such as anger, or… well, pretty much just anger. On occasion lust might make an appearance or one of the other old stand-byes. But, if sadness or loneliness crept their way back in, he'd muffle it with several boxes of Boo Berry or one of his other favorites. That was how he distracted himself from his feelings. 

He was an artist… 'was' being the key word. He hadn't created anything of value in almost the entire span of human existence. What was the point? Anything in the Pit was sure to decay. The abyss that was the human portions of Hell didn't exactly inspire creativity. At least not to someone who had to look at that filth almost every single day of eternity.

The Hell that is common place was and is a human construct. The world, the universe even, would have been so much better had God left well enough alone. If She'd never created man, the great war wouldn't have had a cause to happen. Or, even, if it had eventually happened, there would be no suffering 'below'. There would be the cold and darkness. The infinite sadness that comes with being one of the fallen. But, there would be no stench, no wailing, no flames, no… well, none of the other stuff that goes on in the Pit. 

Azrael shuddered just thinking of what was happening on just on the other side of the river, past the stone wall. He had done some pretty underhanded and malicious things over the years, but nothing like what the other demons were capable of. The things he had to see daily were such that if a living human so much as looked at it for no more than two minutes, they would drop dead. When he had allowed Bethany to see what he was trying to escape from, he made sure not to let her look for more than a few seconds. Otherwise, he'd have had a dead scion on his hands; which probably would have been a good thing at the time. 

The images were always in his mind, no matter where he went or what he did. The smell was there also. And, quite possibly worst of all, the screaming. The wailing and crying of the tortured souls were always in his head. Sometimes he couldn't hear the sound of his own thoughts for the sounds of suffering. Not just in Hell, it was there all the time. The pain and misery of the mortal souls was like a plague. 

The only time the sound was dimmed was when They filled his head with the sounds of Their multiple voices, telling him to do what They wished. They were calling to him now, telling him that it was time to check on the great enemy of the underworld. Not that he wanted to go, but some things he was obliged to do. Anything was better than hanging by his feet for the rest of eternity, which was Their favorite punishment to threaten him with. Though on some days, he thought maybe forced solitude, albeit upside down solitude, might not be such a bad thing.


	3. Uppity Angel Types

A girl named Rufus, much like a boy named Sue, is not someone to be trifled with. She may have been only five, but Rue (as she was called) was one feisty little girl. At the moment however, she was sitting in a sandbox, quietly shoveling sand into a pail. One of the rare moments that she wasn't tormenting the boys on the playground. 

Azrael stood, leaning against the fence that surrounded the playground and quietly watched the little girl go about her business. None of the other children saw him nor the teacher who was supposed to be watching the kids. She was only half-paying attention because she was trying to hide the fact that she was grabbing a quick smoke. It wasn't that Azrael was invisible, but he had this ability to go unnoticed by humans. He was there and anyone could see him had they paid attention. But, the thing about the mortals was that they rarely paid attention to anything. Especially the important stuff. 

Rue saw him, but she chose to ignore him. She had seen him on numerous occasions and had gotten used to the 'man with horns'. Her mother had told her never to talk to him. To not even look at him. And, most important of all, never ever tell anyone about him. 

Azrael, for his part, had been ordered by Them to keep an eye on the girl. Occasionally see what was going on with her. Look for any of the signs that this, what may well be, the very Last Scion was about to do anything that might possibly start the war to end all wars. Not that he really knew what these so-called signs were. When she was younger, he only had to visit once, maybe twice a year. But, now that she was getting bigger, and that her nemesis had presumably been conceived on the Jersey shore, his visits became more frequent. It was about the single most boring task he had ever been assigned to. 

The most boring task had been the time he was sent up to count all the rocks in Wales. That being a punishment for telling Them to 'go fuck themselves' when They had told him that They would prefer him to start acting like the other demons. He wasn't about to act like those half-wits. He didn't listen to God; he sure wasn't going to listen to a bunch of displaced voices. He counted maybe a hundred rocks before quitting. 

And, now, here he was watching a little girl shovel sand. He yawned. Not that his kind needed to yawn, but he felt that this level of boredom warranted a good display. It was the kind of boredom that one would just as soon beat their head against a wall than have to endure. It was that bad.

Azrael turned his head, looking for a good strong wall, when he felt a heavenly presence. He looked back over to find the Metatron standing nearby watching him. To a demon, there's something unsettling about an angel staring at him. Especially if that angel happened to be the Voice of God. 

"Enoch…"

"Don't call me that, you impudent demon. You will address me as the Metatron, Herald of the Almighty, Voice of…"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah…. There's no mini-bar here, so fuck off."

Metatron sighed.

"I'd love nothing more than to 'fuck off', as you so eloquently put it. However, I've been sent to find you, which wasn't hard given that you're usually either watching this girl, off somewhere sulking, or sniffing around that angel of yours."

At the mention of Delilah, a flicker of guilt flashed across Azrael's face. He hoped that Metatron hadn't noticed.

"Don't think that we don't know what you do. You should know better than to think that we don't keep tabs on everyone… especially a troublemaker such as yourself. Now you're going to ask if we know your every move, then why can't we seem to find this girl from your letter? I'm thinking that she's being very well protected. Even more hidden from Heaven's radar than even you could conjure. Serendipity, on the other hand, has the theory that you made the entire story up… a sad play for her pity. She's not really your sister, you know."

Azrael stood quietly for a moment, wondering what Metatron wanted. He had already told Serendipity what little he knew. 

"Now you're going to ask…"

"Get out of my fucking head! If I want to ask a question, I'll say it out loud. Just, stay out of there."

"Gladly. You've got more cobwebs than thoughts in there anyway."

Azrael grunted. Stupid uppity angels. Just because they bask in God's glory, they think they're so much better than the demons. Well, they _were_ better than the demons… but they didn't have to be such jerks about it.

Metatron motioned his head towards Rue.

"Has she done anything?"

"Aside from play in the sand? No."

"Then, she hasn't…um…"

"Hasn't what?! I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for. Do you know what we're waiting for her to do?"

"No."

"Jesus! You'd think someone would tell somebody something." 

Azrael sighed, then closed his eyes as the wind picked up. When he opened them, Metatron was still staring at him.

"Stop staring at me! Why are you down here anyway? Shouldn't you be crawled up in a bottle somewhere?"

"If you must know, God asked for my opinion on something. And, as I hadn't set eyes on you in ages, I thought I'd come down and form my opinion in person."

Azrael didn't like the sound of that at all. God discussing him didn't sit well. He was almost afraid to ask.

"Opinion about what?"

"That, demon, is none of your concern. But, it looks to me like you'll be finding out. I have an opinion now."

Before Azrael could try to demand an explanation, Metatron disappeared. The school bell rang and all of the children started to head back inside. As Rue passed Azrael, she looked up at him. She stared up for a moment, raised her middle finger, and then ran to join to other children. Just what he needed, another demon hating bitch. Serendipity would love her.


	4. The Pit

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"All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"

Of all the things that he had to do in any given day, this was by far the worst. The boredom, dealing with the annoying angels, even the asshole demons were preferable. Azrael had to cross through the Pit. 

Teleportation was not allowed this deep in Hell. No powers of any kind worked once a demon walked past the large stone wall. Most of the fallen and others who learned the loophole of the Pit, stayed in the area known as the City of Dis. Dis wasn't located behind the wall. In fact, Dis vaguely resembled Ottawa. Those who had powers could freely use them in that section of Hell. Very few had any kind of powers that were any more impressive than an average parlor trick. Only the higher-ranking demons could do things such as teleportation. Well, high ranking demons and Azrael. He had learned how to freely come and go as he pleased when he had been a muse in Heaven. He learned how to do several things over the years that had come in handy. But, none of those helped once he walked past the large stone wall. Except maybe just the simple ability to not think too hard about what he was looking at, or stepping in for that matter. 

Whenever he was sent up to watch Rue do nothing, he had to report back to Semiazas. But, he had to walk through the Pit in order to do so. Diriel had been assigned to check in on Bethany once a year, but since the conception of Rue was partially Azrael's fault, They made him take over scion watching duties. 

Azrael stood at the edge of the large stone wall, hoping to work himself up enough to go in. Hoping even more that Semiazas would grow impatient and come looking for him instead. But, he knew there was no chance of that. He took his hat off and sat it on one of the many rocks that were along the bank of the river Styx. The last thing he wanted was to call any more attention to himself than necessary. He took a deep breath, then stepped past the wall. 

The first thing he had to walk through was a long hallway. There was no electricity in this part of Hell; the only light came from torches that were hung along the walls. The ground was squishy with blood and congealed fat. The smell was quite foul. On either side of him were chambers, whose doors were thankfully always closed. There were small windows in the doors, but it wasn't something you wanted to look in. Not even a demon was crazy enough to look in the windows. The chambers ran the entire length of the hall, and were stacked up the wall similar in structure to that of a multi-level prison. However, the wall stretched up to a dizzying height. The walls of the hallway were so tall that it was impossible to see the ceiling, if there was a ceiling. Azrael doubted that there was. 

The screaming was so loud in this section, that once someone left, they had something similar to the condition known as 'concert ear' for at least an hour. The screaming just from these chambers could be heard in every part of Hell, and in the minds of the demons, but it was nothing in comparison to how loud it was to actually walk down the damp hallway itself. 

Azrael kept his eyes to the ground, making sure to not even accidentally look inside one of the windows. He saw it all in his mind constantly, but he didn't want to see it in person. It seemed to have taken forever to walk through the hallway. If it had been in mortal time, it would take someone years to walk the length of the hall. In theory, a mortal could be born at the entrance to the hallway, walk non-stop for his entire life, and die from old age long before he ever reached the end. But, in celestial time, it was a ten minute walk at best. It just seemed to have lasted forever. 

Getting past the hallway wasn't exactly a time to breathe a sigh of relief. Once he made it out, he came into the main section of the suffering Pit. This was the part that the humans normally thought of when they pictured the underworld. The lakes of fire, the wailing damned floundering about, the whole nine yards of despair. The brutish demons were around, doing unspeakable things to the bastard souls who didn't even know that they could stop this perversity at any time. Thus was the disposition of the mortals, ignorant to the very end… and beyond. 

Just look at the ground, don't make eye contact with the other demons, try to go unnoticed. He couldn't look too closely at the ground because not only was it just as squishy as the hallway's floor, but there were still-moving pieces of who-knows-what body parts littering his path. He didn't even realize it at first, but he was quietly singing the theme to _Three's Company _to himself. His mind's way of trying to block out what was going on around him. A loud crunchy sound made him momentarily forget the words. 

"Can't ever get used to it, eh, Muse?"

Azrael glanced up to see Semiazas standing nearby, looking very much like a warehouse foreman. Azrael shook his head 'no'.

"That's the problem with you… um… Azrael. You don't belong in Hell. I know that if this place were the factory that I imagine it to be, I sure as ta' shit wouldn't hire a worthless muse. Pussy angels don't have the stomach for torture, eh?"

Semiazas laughed and elbowed Azrael in the ribs. Azrael forced out a smile in return. When Semiazas turned for a moment to bark an order at a passing demon, Azrael scowled and rubbed the place where Semiazas had jabbed his elbow. 

Semiazas turned back to Azrael, and laughed when he saw that his jab had hurt.

"So, any news from the surface?"

"No."

"Nothing?"

"Not a fucking thing. The Last Scion played in a sandbox for a half-hour, then she flipped me off, and went inside the school."

Semiazas laughed and slapped Azrael on the back none too gently.

"Good job, Muse. Give me something to tell those mother scratchers on the council. Probably not what they were wanting to hear, but they dislike you enough to appreciate this report. Oh, and that son' bitch Saminga told me to tell you to watch your back."

"Watch my back?"

Semiazas shrugged.

"I'm not a messenger service, that's just what he said. Now get out of here 'fore I put you to work."


	5. A Dark Night Again

Time was nearing an end, or so he was told. Normally one such suicidal demon would be happy about that. But, it wasn't nearly as cut and dry as it sounded. Regardless if it happened with Rue and the unborn child or with someone else many years from now, the result was going to be the same. Not the negating of existence by any means. What this great war that they were waiting on would bring about, would be the end of human life as it were. Heaven would consume the Earth and set about judging everyone. What exactly that would mean for him, Azrael wasn't sure. He was sure that he'd be cast away with the other demons, but if that meant death or more purgatory was anyone's guess. He'd rather just end all of existence and be done with it. None of this watching, waiting, and seven seals nonsense. Everything had to be made more complicated than it really needed to be. No wonder the mortals were so fucked up.

Azrael was sitting on top the roof of a church, looking up at the stars. He was sitting on St. Michael's Cathedral in Red Bank, NJ to be exact. Surely Bartleby and Loki's get together had started. Azrael closed his eyes and searched out with his mind for his former angel friends. They were in the City of Dis, already drunk. Bartleby was playing darts. Loki was sitting at the bar. Neither of them seemed to have noticed that their oldest friend was not there. Not that he cared about them.

A 'meow' broke his train of thought. Azrael opened his eyes and turned to see an orange kitten run across the roof of the church. He looked around to see if anyone else was there, but he was alone. The kitten itself was gone as well. A whisper, light as the wind, floated past, but it was too quiet to hear. 

A sudden sharp pain in his lower back was followed by an evil, yet familiar laugh. Before Azrael could look to see the one who was surely laughing, he was kicked straight off the roof by a foot clad in a big black boot. 

St. Michael's was not a small church by any means. A fall like that would splatter a man, however it did little more than piss off a demon. Azrael landed in the shrubbery with a hard 'thud'. After a moment, he crawled out, and replaced his hat as he stood. It was dark. Much darker than it was on the roof only a few minutes earlier. There were no stars, no moon; all the streetlights were off. Actually, all of the streetlights had been broken out. 

Azrael wobbled a little bit as he walked. He didn't feel right, but he assumed it must have been because of being shoved off the roof of such a large building. Before he could figure out what had happened, he saw a figure lying in the middle of the road. With a little difficulty, he walked over to find that it was Delilah. It looked as though someone had stabbed her, red blood was soaking through her beloved Givin hoodie. Azrael had always hated that shirt; stupid ugly Givin.

Azrael knelt down and shook her. Nothing. She appeared to be dead, though it was kind of hard to tell on a not-technically-living creature. Azrael stood and looked down at her. He then looked at his own hands, now covered with her blood, and felt absolutely nothing. It occurred to him that there was a steadily growing pool of black accumulating at his feet. For a moment he thought he was standing in an oil slick that was surely staining his favorite brown shoes. Then, he realized that it was running down his formerly white pants; the black was coming from him. He was pouring blood from somewhere. He reached behind himself to find a knife buried up to the handle in his lower back. That's what the sharp pain had been. That's why he had felt so weird. Someone had stabbed a blessed knife in him just before kicking him off the roof. And, that one person had to be none other than…

"Saminga," Azrael said as he turned to face the grinning demon.

"See you soon…"

Saminga then hit him with something large, too quickly for Azrael to see what it was. His hat went sailing across the road. Everything went dark after that.

A few minutes later, Azrael found himself sitting on the sidewalk, not knowing where he was or what had happened. The ground under his ass was wet; absently he thought that it must have rained. He saw that his hat was lying upturned a few feet away. 

"I should get that"; his clouded mind told himself, "And why the fuck is this song stuck in my head?"


End file.
